


Tell Me a Story

by leeraiii



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Filipino!Cecil, Fluff, M/M, Philippine Mythological Creatures, and kisses, but you can ask him for cuddles, don't ask Cecil for bedtime stories: a novel by carlos the scientist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-20
Updated: 2014-04-20
Packaged: 2018-01-20 02:34:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1493467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leeraiii/pseuds/leeraiii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carlos grinned up at him, pulling his knees towards his chest. "And I suppose you would know how to tell a scary story the right way, huh?"</p>
<p>"Of course, it's basically what I do for a living, except, you know: my stories are real and do not just dwell in the realm of fiction."</p>
<p>"Hmmm..."</p>
<p>'"Hmmm'? Penny for your thoughts, Mr. Scientist?"</p>
<p>Carlos wriggled in place and when he was contented, perfectly snug and warm within Cecil's embrace, he grinned up at the wary countenance of the radio host and said, "Tell me a story."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tell Me a Story

**Author's Note:**

> After a brief tussle with the living room fan that refuses to be cooperative in THIS HEAT (GOD DON'T ATTEMPT TO WRITE FLUFF IN THE MIDDLE OF CEBUANO SUMMER HEAT WAVES IT'S JUST FUCKING AWFUL), I finally finished this monster! I never did expect for this to be as long as it is but Carlos just can't seem to stop MONOLOGUING? I blame this all on the condos speech. Sigh.
> 
> Written because the amazing [japhers](http://japhers.tumblr.com/) introduced their amazing Filipino Cecil headcanon and I fell in love with him. He's amazing, you guys. Please check it out: [here](http://japhers.tumblr.com/post/82703201636/violently-filipino-cecil-because-yaaaaas), [here](http://japhers.tumblr.com/post/82601087703/whispers-imagine-a-filipino-cecil-bundling-up-against), [here](http://japhers.tumblr.com/post/82860360672/cecil-and-carlos-dancing-tinikling-tho), and [here](http://japhers.tumblr.com/post/83055976606/whispers-think-about-filipino-cecil-forcing-carlos-to).
> 
> Also, I think I broke my back writing this.

It was movie night and the both of them had retired to the couch to see what was currently on as they had exhausted their meager DVD collection and weren’t up to re-watching them for the 5th time that month. Really, City Council should lift the ban of purchasing DVD’s released in the years 2006 and up soon.

They curled up on the frankly overstuffed upholstery with a well-loved afghan draped over their shoulders, settled for an amateur horror movie with Cecil making offhanded comments about what the protagonists were doing wrong or how utterly stupid they were being summoning a demon with no proper etiquette whatsoever.

Carlos, however, was busy fiddling with Cecil’s hands, as he was prone to do when deep in thought.

Carlos liked Cecil’s hands.

They were big and calloused and could easily cover his own when Cecil allowed him to fidget with them on occasion, the tips of his own wiry chemically burned fingers peeking out from underneath.

Carlos liked to trace the almost-galaxy patterned scars crisscrossing against the dark skin a shade or two lighter than his own. There were a few obvious scars from old knife wounds that looked like dying meteors cutting across his skin, a particular patch of old rope burns that didn't really heal properly also almost looked like an asteroid belt peppering across the skin of his wrists.

Carlos winced, berating himself for finding beauty in scars that more than likely were remnants from disquieting situations the man beside him had had to experience in a town as dangerous as Night Vale. He could wax poetic (as much as he could anyway, Carlos could admit he wasn't anything close to a poet) about how scars were proof of your existence, that the fact you had bled at all was something to be accredited but nothing could change the fact of just how much the experience must have been so taxing for Cecil during the moment.

Carlos frowned as he caressed a welt that vaguely reminded him of lightning. Just as much as he wished Cecil didn't have to hurt at all was the persistent thought that those experiences were what made Cecil into what he was now. Strong, loving, reliable and a right joy to be with and Carlos wouldn't have it any other way.

No matter, Carlos thought. Right now he was here to make sure Cecil hurt himself less, and even if he did, Carlos was here to take care of him.

He was jarred from his rather roundabout thoughts when Cecil jumped and the hand that Carlos held in his squeezed a tad harder than he would have preferred.

"Oh, god," Cecil breathed, his other hand pressed against his heaving chest. "Well, that was petty."

"You alright?" Carlos asked, curling a bit further into the warmth that was his boyfriend.

Cecil shrugged, pulling the afghan tighter against them. "I just hate jumpscares." He said, waving a hand vaguely towards the movie. "Really, they wouldn’t have to resort to such tactics if they knew how to tell a horror story the right way." And yet Carlos saw him lift his feet from the floor, stretching one across the couch behind Carlos and bending the other inwards, firmly encasing Carlos between them. "Sometimes the story is enough."

Carlos grinned up at him, pulling his knees towards his chest. "And I suppose you would know how to tell a scary story the right way, huh?"

"Of course, it's basically what I do for a living, except, you know: my stories are real and do not just dwell in the realm of fiction."

"Hmmm," Carlos tapped his fingers against the hand he currently held hostage, hum trailing off into 'I want to ask you something but I want to play coy and will wait for you to ask me about it because I know you will'.

'"Hmmm'?" Cecil repeated, amused despite anything. "Penny for your thoughts, Mr. Scientist?"

Carlos wriggled in place and when he was contented, perfectly snug and warm within Cecil's embrace, grinned up at the wary countenance of the radio host. "Tell me a story."

Cecil blinked back at him, facial expression dropping into a deadpan before he leered at the scientist, horror movie forgotten in favor of levelling Carlos with positively the most shit-eating grin he can manage. In all honesty, Carlos would have jumped him right then and there if he weren't so damn comfortable in his cocoon right now. "Are you asking me for a bedtime story, _pangga_?"

Carlos preened at the pet name. "Suppose I am."

Cecil made a show of looking at a clock, even though they both knew perfectly well that time did not exist in a town as complex as Night Vale. "Isn't it a bit too early for your bedtime?"

Well, let it be known that Carlos knew a trick or two to get what he wanted from a Cecil who was only a few pokes away from relenting. Carlos pulled a face that made Cecil snort, lifting a large hand up to push Carlos' face away from his line of sight. "No, what did I say about making ridiculous faces at me, Carlos?"

Carlos batted the offending hand away from his face with a grin. "That they make you want to kiss the living lights out of me?" And he managed to say it without blushing, too. Ten points for him.

Cecil turned a very lovely shade of red. "Aside from that."

"They make you want to ravish-" The hand that appeared over his mouth stopped him from forming any more words.

" _Atay,_ ” Cecil swore. “Shhhh, okay Mister you can get your bedtime stories."

Carlos had the sense not to lick the hand over his mouth. Instead, he lightly shook his head to get Cecil to remove it, revealing the grin plastered on his face. "Pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Palmer."

Cecil scoffed, but not unkindly. "I never did say I was a good salesman."

Softening his grin to mirror the one on Cecil's face, Carlos shifted, rearranging their limbs so he can drape an arm over his radio hosts' shoulders, reaching behind him to trace the eye patterns of his hair with his fingers. "Ready when you are."

Watching purple eyes shifting to the side in thought, Carlos scrutinized Cecil as he arranged his thoughts, and ultimately, his words in his head. He didn't even bother to pretend that he was doing anything but. To watch Cecil conjure a story on the spot would be a delight Carlos will never take for granted. Cecil thrived in his freedom to string words and build sentences together to form one collective coherent thought or message. Carlos however, lived in numbers and codes and patterns. He was confident in the fact that numbers were constant. There were formulae and a set of rules to follow so he wouldn't have to deconstruct and reconstruct words together to get his point across.

If he were given all the time in the word to simulate the pattern for the way Cecil constructs his stories, he'd never be able to. To break his paragraphs down to substrings and to parse those substrings to words tokenized by empty spaces and commas and periods and semicolons, down into basic component parts of speech with an explanation of form and function would be easy, yes. But to find a way to simulate the syntactic relationship between those words would be a feat Carlos, even with all his genius and determination, would be hard-pressed to accomplish. Sure, he could come up with the most complicated of finite state machines and/or regular expressions or what have you, but it would never be enough.

"... One day, _isang araw_. _May isang_ big boat; _na malaki_."

Carlos blinked. "What?"

"Oh, good. Glad to have you back to the world of the living, sweetheart."

And that's when the fact that he couldn't easily condense Cecil into strings of code or mathematical models or multi-dimensional matrices sunk into his head. The fact that Cecil possessed a wide knowledge of languages added too many variables to look into without going mad with how large the scope had gotten.

"The look on your face is scary. Are you really this intense when told bedtime stories?"

"Only on Tuesdays." Carlos deadpanned.

"I'd hate to be the object of your thoughts if that is how you look while thinking about me."

"I really was thinking about you actually."

Cecil winced. "With that expression?"

Carlos nodded, a slow smile cutting his face in two as he leant to nuzzle against Cecil's cheek. "About how utterly wonderful and impossible you are."

"Oh, shush you sweet-talker, that's my job.”

Still idly tracing the intricate patterns of Cecil's hair and watching those purple eyes glint against the muted glow of the TV, Carlos prompted for Cecil to begin.

"Hmmm, I don't suppose you're familiar with Philippine mythological creatures?"

Carlos perked up at the mention of Cecil's birthplace. Up until recently, Carlos had thought Cecil had lived in Night Vale all of his life. He was relatively surprised when he heard that that wasn't the case. It turned out Cecil had been born in one of the provinces south of the Philippines and then something transpired involving a portal, his mother, a mirror and the coincidental rigging of space-time continuum. After that they conveniently found themselves in Night Vale, adapting to the eccentricities of the town in order to blend in, Cecil joining the Night Vale Boy Scouts not long after when it became clear he had to learn a few tricks to survive in a town like Night Vale. Cecil then said that he had used his Special Teleportation badge to visit his roots, spending an indefinite time back in the Philippines and then when he came back he had endeavored to become Night Vale Community Radio's host. Carlos couldn't find it within himself to ask about the specifics, not when Cecil's eyes went so bright detailing how colorful the festivals were, how friendly and hospitable the people had been and how if they ever got the chance, he was going to take Carlos there to make him see it for himself.

"No, can't say I am." Carlos eventually answered.

The slow smirk curling across Cecil's face was anything but reassuring, making Carlos apprehensive all of a sudden. Maybe asking Cecil to tell him a horror story wasn’t such a good idea?

“Right, that’s perfectly fine. We can crash course: Philippine Mythology 101.”

“Okay?”

 “The first creature I am going to introduce to you is the most popular monster across the country: the Aswang.” Cecil intoned, melting into his radio host persona seamlessly.

“As-wha?”

“The Aswang, dear Carlos.” Cecil supplied, shifting his hold against the scientist. “I suppose you could say they are the Philippine version of vampires but there are things that make them a bit more complicated.”

“How?”

“Well, to start with: The lore of the Aswang varies from region to region.” Cecil leaned back against the sofa, tipping his head back to gaze up at the ceiling. “In extreme cases, description of them can even vary from person to person, unlike that of the vampire where it’s common knowledge that they prey on people, suck blood, and are commonly weak against sunlight, etcetera etcetera.” He said, waving a hand around.

“The Aswang are said to be able to use witchcraft for one thing.” Cecil said as he ticks of his fingers. “Second is that they are able to transform into anything they so please. Birds, pigs, cats or most often, dogs. Third is that during the day, they look like regular human beings, usually really beautiful women. Fourth is that they prey on people and eat their innards. No one is safe from the Aswang, especially pregnant women. Aswang are known to like the taste of unborn fetuses.”

“So they aren’t really that much different from vampires, then.” Carlos said. He wouldn’t admit it but he was getting pretty creeped out now. What had they been thinking watching a horror movie in the dark?!

Cecil nodded slowly, lifting his head up and leveling Carlos with a serious stare. “The concept is there, sure. But what makes them different is that they have these long, coiling red tongues that they use to suck fetuses out of the unaware soon-to-be mothers.”

Carlos gulped. “What?”

“See, here’s how they work.” Cecil said, holding up a finger to Carlos’ rapidly paling face. “If they spot a pregnant female, they stalk them back towards their huts as animals.”

“Huts?”

“Nipa huts, Carlos. They’re quite common in the rural areas. They’re small quaint houses, usually only made of bamboo tied together and a thatched roofed made with nipa leaves. I think they’re called kugon in a few provinces.”

“Okay, so how do they take the fetus? Do they knock the mother unconscious and take them back to their lairs or something?”

“I don’t know about that. But from what I heard, they just keep watch of the house until everyone is asleep and when they get the chance, they’ll alight on the roof right on top of the pregnant woman and since the roof of the hut is made of flimsy material, they can easily cut a hole large enough to insert their long slimy tongues downwards, stretching and stretching until it’s near enough to jab against the stomach and eat the baby right out of the mother’s womb.”

Carlos did not know how to react to that except to lean forward, curious and intrigued. “And then?”

“And then they transform themselves back into a bird and fly away, leaving the mother dead. Because why just settle for the baby when you can eat her other organs as well?”

“Damn.”

“Uh-huh. Now, I met quite the character during my travels and he goes by the name Manong Marcelo. He was in his 60’s when I met him but was still very active. I’d see him chopping up lumber early in the mornings and fetching water from the well by the end of the street so that his grandchildren will have bathing water to get ready for school. One night, he told me a story from the time he was about my age, the time when he first encountered a Manananggal.”

“What’s that?”

“Some say the Manananggal is another type of Aswang, others say they’re another evil entirely. They’re very alike to the Aswang though, other than the fact that when it decides to hunt for the night, the upper part of its body will be able to detach itself from its hips and legs, leaving the intestines and organs to hang out in the open air while it takes flight with huge bat wings.” Cecil took both opposing edges of the afghan draped around them, spread his arms out and flapped them, imitating a bird (or a monster) which had Carlos shivering from either the sudden cold or the menacing picture Cecil painted right now.

“They leave their lower bodies in an isolated area where no one can find it. If you ever do find the lower half of a Manananggal, sprinkle salt or ash or crushed garlic on top of it, the Manananggal can’t rejoin both halves if you do. And when the sun returns the next day?”

Cecil dropped one end of the afghan to dramatically snap his fingers. “It will burn to the ground and die.”

“Whoa.”

“Now, Manong Marcelo was once a van driver for a V-Hire company in the city. One day a married couple decided to rent a van to take them to the province to visit the wife’s ill mother. Manong Marcelo volunteered to do it since he had groceries to take to his family on the way. When he met the couple that night, he was surprised to know that the wife was pregnant.”

“Oh, dear.”

Cecil chuckled. “Indeed, Carlos. There was nothing wrong with that, at least, not _then_. Lore was the last thing on Manong Marcelo’s mind.

“After a few hours, they left the city proper and entered the province. Concrete office buildings and charming one-story houses were gradually replaced by huge menacing looking Acacia, Balete and Mango trees that towered over either side of the road. They had wide thick branches and huge trunks, obscuring what little sky they could see overhead with its canopy. It had also began drizzling, the fierce winds making the trees look like they came to life and were gradually reaching towards them with their long knobby talons.

“They were also the only ones in the road at that time of the night. The rural roads are awfully quiet during the day time, much more so during the night.

“That was the time when all of them knew something was following them. It started out as a light whooshing, sort of like a staccato ‘wak-wak’ of the air above them or at their side. Sometimes it would disappear for a few minutes before it started up again, only a little louder before it gradually became softer until the only sounds they could hear was the rain.

_“‘Ginoo ko, ayaw lang g’yud intawon.’_ Manong Marcelo heard the husband say as he wrapped his arms around his shaking wife’s shoulders. They were all aware of the lore. Most, if not all, Filipinos were. However, there was always a variation. Some say that if a Manananggal is close, the sound of its wings would grow softer to make you think that it was far away. When it isn’t within the vicinity, the sound of its wings flapping will get louder.

“Suddenly, Manong Marcelo stepped on the breaks, knocking the couple forward because right there in the middle of the road was a ridiculously big muddy pig.”

“Oh my God, is it an Aswang?” Carlos breathed.

“Manong Marcelo was sure that it was because the small bottle of oil he had hanging from the rear-view mirror started boiling.”

“So they have two monsters on pursuit?!”

Cecil grinned, “Yes, dear Carlos because when the three of them turned to look behind them they saw something that would change their lives forever.

“It was hideous, for one thing. It was plastered, stuck, hovering just at the back window of the van, flanked by dark monstrous trees and the rain pelting down from the skies. It looked like a mangled half-dead old woman with wild thick black hair that stuck out in different directions. Its skin was wrinkly and spotted, with black and purple bruise-like things contrasting against the palor of its skin. Its fingers were long and sharp claws that looked as if they could readily pierce through your throat and claw your intestines out. It had huge bat-like wings sprouting out of its back stretching to its full width to encompass the van, its lower body was missing and instead its internal organs were sliding down the back window, red, _red_ blood mingling with the rain outside.

“What unsettled them even more, however, was the huge malicious grin it had that stretched from ear to ear, revealing razor-sharp yellow teeth that cut into its blackened lower lip and its red long, _long_ proboscis tongue that hung in between them. It just stared at them, with wide circular black eyes. It was unmoving, almost as if someone had pressed a paused button on everything other than the rain and the trees. It didn’t blink, the grin didn’t falter and everything was muted, still, quiet.

 

“And then it lunged,” Cecil yelled theatrically, “Cracking the glass that separated it from its prey, emitting a shrill ear-piercing shriek as the barrier refused to give away.

“ _’Drive, drive!’_ The husband yelled, clutching at the back of the seat in front of him tightly. The Manananggal continued throwing itself at the window, screeching itself hoarse, new cracks forming along the first one, sprouting webs upon webs of fissures in its wake until Manong Marcelo floored the gas and sped away.”

“Oh my god, did they come out of it alive? Were the wife and baby okay?”

Cecil chuckled, finally breaking his story-teller persona. “Don’t worry. They did. They rummaged around Manong Marcelo’s groceries and found garlic and onions.”

“Oh, thank goodness!”

“You should have seen yourself, Carlos.” Cecil teased, pulling Carlos closer to his person. “You were so adorable even though it felt like you were trying to crush my fingers in your hand halfway through the story.”

“I-, I wasn’t scared or anything.”

Cecil grinned. “ _Ay, noh?_ Guess I should try harder later.”

Just then, something shattered from the direction of their bedroom followed by a scuttling sound. The skittering went on for a few seconds before it eventually disappeared.

“Oh my god. Cecil, whatever you’re doing it isn’t funny.”

To Carlos’ horror, Cecil looked as scared as he was. “I wasn’t doing anything.”

No one knew who acted first but together they flung the afghan over their heads and stretched themselves across the couch, legs tangling together as they hung on to each other for dear life.

_“Unsa mani oy.”_ Cecil whispered as he chuckled, “It could have just been the Faceless Old Woman.”

“Yeah, but there’s no way I’m getting off this couch until I see the sun, Cecil.” Carlos whispered back.

Cecil laughed, planting a soft kiss on Carlos’ forehead. “ _Sige, sige_. We’re spending the night here and then we’ll wake up cranky and pissed.”

“At least we’re still alive.”

“Yeah, at least we’re still alive.” Cecil echoed.  

Carlos really couldn’t find it within himself to resent Cecil. After, all the radio host had had something to prove. A storyteller’s integrity and all that.

And should Cecil find garlic clumps hanging from strategic positions all across their apartment, Cecil should have enough grace not to mention them.


End file.
